


Baby, You're A Haunted House

by turianosauruswrex



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Dungeons & Dragons Campaign, Gen, Homebrew Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:53:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23450509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turianosauruswrex/pseuds/turianosauruswrex
Summary: Collection of shorts written for a D&D campaign about a kalashtar monk, her Divine Soul sorcerer soulmate, and their ongoing mission to make themselves the bane of the divine.





	Baby, You're A Haunted House

**Author's Note:**

> Oh god I'm posting this. Anyways a couple quick notes, my roommates and I have a D&D game that's just the three of us, set in a modern homebrew world that we've absolutely fallen in love with. Relevant notes will appear at the beginning of each entry.
> 
> Seraiah Levine: Kalashtar monk, museum intern, corpse.  
> Narrata Astra: Seraiah's monastery, regarded as one of the most prominent academic institutions in the country of Ekhearth. Astrology-themed-- each monk bears the constellation of their sun sign on their chest, their moon sign on their left shoulder and their rising sign on their left shoulder. Each sign corresponds to an area of study; monks can get more constellation tattoos as they study.  
> Voyager: The sign representing the study of exploration, cartography and travel. Appears as the prow of a sailing ship in the night sky.

What was it Cyrus always said? “Curiosity killed the cat”? Seraiah always thought it was to shoo her and her chattering from his library but come to find out, in her case, it's literal, at least judging by the hole through her body.

The last thing she remembers from before she woke up was falling-- trying to twist away from the statue's golden sword below her but finding herself with no command over her own body.

Before that, metal-- a gun barrel in the small of her back, a cold hand clamped over her mouth, a steely whisper in her ear and a sudden hot, piercing bullet through her spine.

Before that, silence-- the museum sleeping around her, nothing but a few security guards, her own constant whispers and the scratching of her pen to keep her company. Before that, a call back home, assuring Isra and Cyrus and the other masters that she was faring well in Haven, that the museum was more than accommodating, that of course she was being careful and responsible-- as if she had any other choice, she'd laughed. They'd wished her a happy birthday, because yes it was late but it still counted, and Isra made her promise to call back when she got her gift.

Metal. Whisper. Bullet. Sword.

Of all the ways to die, it had to be like this. At least it was memorable.

Death isn't anything like what she read in the legends. No pristine white ballroom. No series of doors. It's dark, and cold, it's so cold, and she still feels every bit in her body and feels the metal all around her, trapping her in pitch black.

A door at her feet swings open. The light blinds her for a moment as something pulls her into it-- pulls the drawer she's in, more like; nothing touches her herself. When her eyes adjust to the brightness she can make out the room around her-- more metal tables, more corpses occupying them, steel and tile and harsh fluorescent light. It smells of bleach and embalming fluid, sterile and aggressively flat.

The stiffness fades from her limbs as she takes it all in until she can move enough to sit up and take a good, long look at herself. Whoever brought her here hasn't yet bothered to clean the blood off her skin or close the gash running straight down her torso.

As she watches, eyes growing wide, it stitches itself up until she's good as new, the only sign of her death the bloodstains and the scar, pale and puckered despite how fresh it is. She traces it in wonder, tracing up to her chest, and feels no heartbeat beneath her fingers.

“It's a shame, what happened to you, Serai. Dying so soon-- how many years did you have? Twenty?”

The sudden voice gives her a start; when she looks up she sees, in the corner across the room, a young man in a sharp black suit flipping casually through a comic book. His hair is just as dark, with flecks of silver sprinkled throughout, and when he meets her eyes with a smirk they're the brightest, coldest blue she's ever seen.

Seraiah nods slowly, her hand still over her chest, covering the Voyager split by the scar. “Twenty. Exactly twenty.”

She looks down again, still processing what happened.

“Was it at least impressive? It had to be, right?”

The man flips the book shut and laughs. “Oh, my dear, the poor man who found you was horrified! The police said it was one of the most gruesome tableaus they'd seen!”

“Huh. Well...wish I knew who I had to thank for the honor.”

She swears she sees his eyes spark.

“Now that-- that I can help with.” He unfolds himself from his seat and strides to her side, offering a hand to help her to her feet. “You can call me Frey. I can let you live again, if you so desire. Find the one who did this to you. Have your closure-- your  _ revenge. _ If you'd like.”

Something in the pit of her stomach stirs at his words. She never thought of herself as a vengeful person. Any slights at home she shrugged off, any particularly barbed insults she'd bitten back her retorts; revenge was never something she'd sought. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, another one of Cyrus's oft-repeated proverbs.

But didn't the person who'd murder a student in cold blood  _ deserve _ to be blind?

Seraiah takes Frey's hand and shakes it in a grip stronger than his own. “Tell me where they are.”

Frey smiles wide and pulls her off the slab. “Oh, Serai, I can't do  _ that. _ Where's the fun in it?”

Her fists start to clench and he holds up a finger.

“But...all you have to do is follow the light. I'll even give you a hint. You're hunting a beast.”

“What? Of course they're a beast, what else would--”

One by one, pinpricks of light appear in Seraiah's vision like so many stars, the glow blooming and blotting out the rest of the room until it's so bright it hurts to look at. She yelps and presses her hands to her eyes and when she can open them again Frey has vanished. The lights remain, but most are dimmer-- save for one, big and white and pulsing, moving about behind the door to the morgue.

Follow the light. Okay, then.

She gathers her effects from the metal table where they sit in plastic bags marked EVIDENCE in bright red letters. The beautiful white robe she'd _just_ earned, trimmed in the Voyagers' blue, now with a massive, bloodstained gash in the back. Her leatherbound journal, her arsenal of pens, her pocketknife, her phone which, miraculously, survived the fall. The trinkets she carries with her to remind her of home, the Narrata Astra. Do they know what happened to her yet?

Outfitted, she tiptoes to the door and pries it open to see a man, probably half a foot taller than her, with his back to her as he settles into a chair at a desk, loudly chewing a sandwich and turning the pages of a book.

He is positively glowing.

Seraiah slips out into the next room and waits,back against the door. It can't be this easy. There's no way. Why would it be, why would some random mortician have it out for her? They've certainly never met; she could just go and find the next light-- someone more likely to commit murder, a roguish type, a definite criminal.

The gnawing in her stomach refuses to relent, only growing worse the more she hesitates and stabbing up into her chest if she moves to leave.

Follow the light.

She sneaks up behind him, places a hand on either side of his head and twists until she hears his neck snap. He doesn't even have time to gasp. His body slumps in its chair as the light fades and Seraiah finds herself still standing, shaken but with no change in her mortality or lack thereof.

Innocent. Should have let him be.

With a trembling hand she shuts his eyes and says a quick prayer under her breath for forgiveness before bolting, footsteps quiet as ever, through the rest of the mortuary to the street. Orange lamplight mixes with the lights from her quarries but does not drown them out. If anything, they've multiplied exponentially.

Follow the lights. Snuff them out. One by one by one, and eventually she'll find her killer.

_ You dug this grave, _ Cyrus's voice echoes in her head.  _ Now lie in it. _

If only he knew.


End file.
